Coral Reefs Create Clouds to Control the Climate

Neil Halelamien writes "New Scientist reports on research showing that coral reefs might cool off by creating their own clouds. The scientists showed that coral reefs are packed with a chemical called DMS, which helps clouds to form when it is released into the atmosphere. In experiments, the researchers have shown that 'corals produce more DMS when the symbiotic algae inside their tissues become stressed by high temperatures or UV radiation,' suggesting that this may be a mechanism corals evolved to help regulate their environment."

Comments

Under the sea . . .

[Leroy_Brown242]

I believe we've completely slacked off at undersea explorations, as a species. So, when scientists find new cool stuff like this, the first thing I think is "You know, this is probably just the shallow end of the pool too, I wish they'd explore more." You never know what secrets to life are out waiting for us in the oceans.

Of course, if we explore it, it'll likely become safer and much easier for the world to exploit and ruin the oceans.

Boy, now I'm all sad n'stuff.

Re:Under the sea . . .

[MoonFog]

It is quite interesting that we can send manned missions to the moon, but not to the bottom of deepest oceans. I know there are different forces involved, but how much do we really know about the sea and the darkness down there?

Re:Under the sea . . .

[confused one]

The problem is that it's easy to send a manned "ship" to space, where the pressure differential is less than 15 lbs per square inch. At the ocean bottom, pressures are exceed 13 TONS per square inch (average depth ~12k ft, salinity and temperature not accounted for). It's fairly hard to build a "ship" that can handle that.

Re:Under the sea . . .

[Mattcelt]

I heard a quote the other day that only 1% of the earth's oceans have been explored. I'm tempted to say that that was an overstatement.

I know there are different forces involved

Technically, you are incorrect here; it's not different forces, but rather different amounts of the same basic forces. Compared to deep sea exploration, space exploration is easy: in space, most forces we feel here on earth - gravity, atmospheric pressure, earth's magnetism, mantle heat, etc. - are significantly reduced. This makes it simple to sustain life there - simply bring a little bit of those forces with us, enough to keep us alive.

The deep sea, otoh, has all of those forces in much greater quantity. The atmospheric pressure we feel at sea level (about 14.7lbs/in^2, IIRC) doubles every 33ft underwater. Rather than trying to keep a little atmosphere in like we would in space, we're trying to keep a bunch of atmospheres OUT. This is a much more complicated problem, espcially since the most remote parts of the deep ocean are miles below the surface...
in parts of the Mariana Trench, the sea floor is almost 7 miles (35,000 feet/11km) deep, and the pressure is more than 1000 atmospheres (14,000+lbs/in^2!).

This isn't to say that these places can't be explored - obviously they can, as we have sent probes to the bottom of the Mariana Trench - but that it makes it a whole lot more difficult than "just" sending a man to the moon.

Re:Under the sea . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

The main force is still financial. We could build submersibles easily capable of handling the depths of Marianna's trench. The Trieste touched the bottom in 1960, but there has been little impetus to fund newer, more mobile and better equipped submersibles with that depth capability since. Which leads us to ask "why?"

I suppose the main reason is that the bottom of the ocean isn't as inspiring as space. There is little ambition to colonize the sea floor. There isn't the same novelty with the oceans that we've interacted with for thousands of years as there is with space, which we first visited less than 45 years ago. Not to mention, movies like The Abyss and Sphere were no where near as interested as Star Wars, and both had a space-related plot origins anyways.

The sea floor also doesn't seem to offer the same access to fundemental science that space does. We know there's life there. That question has been answered. We don't expect there to be a huge amount of difference in what we see at 30000 feet than we do at 15000 feet, which is a zone submersibles like Alvin can reach. More importantly, there is little chance that the bottom of the ocean will answer questions like how the planets formed, why are some different than others, and what was the universe like before the Planck time?

DMS and PMS compared

[tod_miller]

Women have the ability to get very cold and produce a cloud that can kill a man using a principle known as PMS.

It is uncertain as to how this can affect the environments, but some studies suggest that many bearded white coats steer clear of such PMS capable females.

Terraforming.

[PoPRawkZ]

This has serious potential to be used in terraforming of other worlds as well as our own. The main issue I can see here is that by destroying coral reefs we're not only changing currents, increasing errosion, and decimating aquatic ecologies, but also changing land weather patterns in a drastic way.

Re:Terraforming.

[skilef]

Recipe for terraforming:

- Find planet
- Create greenhouse gasses
- Wait many years
- Make sure there's water and stuff
- Wait a couple thousand of years before coral can grown
- Hope it's hot enough on the planet to stress out the coral so that it will envelope the whole planet in a shroud of clouds.

Right. Dimethyl Sulfide is a very common solvent that can be wielded by coral for much more direct benefits than creating clouds. And this aerosole forming properties of DMS are already known for quite a long time.

Rather, we can fly in trillions of eggs and somehow let them rot on the planet to get the DMS we want.

Re:Terraforming.

[GagnierA]

With the advancement of technology and it's broad expanse of possibilities in the future, by the time we become capable of even thinking about terraforming with a certain degree of actually being able to accomplish it, I highly doubt that it would take thousands of years to make something habitable. Sure, like anything else, it'd be a process...and a lengthy one...but saying that it would take thousands of years is rediculous. My guess would be that it would take no longer than 50 years (not taking into consideration the travel time to reach whatever planet)....provided that the planet selected isn't an obsolute barren land. In order for a planet to be considered for candidacy, it would obviously need to have it's own supply of water and a somewhat reasonable atmosphere...but there could be things made to make the "beautification process" completely automated. I have a number of ideas/theories on how exactly this could be done...but this is already off-topic enough from the coral story, but I just had to comment :)

Re:Terraforming.

[skilef]

With the thousands of years, I was referring to the original terraforming message which elaborated on the use of coral to synthesize DMS to form a viable atmosphere with clouds and stuff. Formation of sufficient amounts of coral, if it would be possible altogether (I doubt it), would take thousands of years. Hence the cynical undertone in my message.

Re:Terraforming.

[GagnierA]

Yeah, but who's to say that we couldn't somehow "transplant" coral from Earth in a lab transportation unit environment that would preserve the specimens and encourage it to continue to grow and thrive while in transit?

Who's to say that a procedure couldn't be devised to, more or less, synthetically create living coral...something along the lines of cloning...that would drastically shorten the time for it to mature and improve it's lifespan?

There's no saying that something like this COULD be possible in the scope of future scientific biology. It's not so far fetched, considering scientists have already created procedures that give an 85% success rate on sex selection in babies, all the advancements in medicine against cancer, AIDS, and other pandemic concerns.

I realize that those examples are a totally different sector, but when it comes to science and medicine their progresses are closely intertwined where some successes can be used to advance other studies to get favorable results.

Apart from "you never know", that's all I'm gonna say for now. :)

Re:Terraforming.

[skilef]

My main point: coral is not efficient. If we take the effort to transplant coral and let it proliferate on the way to a star system, we could also take the effort to create a Neumann machine that will continuously duplicate itself on the way there, creating a couple of million DMS synthesis stations. Whether we use coral or Neumann machines, we are reliant on technology for success anyway. Attaching some synthesis station to a transportation vehicle seems more viable to me, especially when you think of all the machines that have to wine&dine, nurture and cuddle the coral. Furthermore, certain algae and prokaryotes are known to produce more efficiently/of the DMS that is required. Their need for 'cuddling' is slightly less apparent. I estimate we both go on and on slinging 'facts' at each other about feasibility of coral-terraforming and the success of sex-selection through PGD, but that really is not the issue. Hence my earlier cynical undertone earlier: the original message is lame. For all we know, we can use DMS-producing coral in the future to boil our eggs without even putting them into water. Or we can plant coral in the sahara to save all africans from certain starvation by generating rain through DMS-generated clouds. Analogy: with all the nice research going on, I think there will be better and more viable options to save the Africans and boil eggs without water. But no, I don't know whether this can be achieved through one mechanism only. Wait a minute, we can! Drop a thousand eggs on the sahara and let them bake in the sun: salmonella-free and nutritious and no water used.. Apart from "you never know", that's all I'm gonna say for now. :)

Re:Terraforming.

[GagnierA]

Those are some good points, but they only go to further elaborate on what I was proposing. Goes to show we share a wave-length on this issue. Either way, we will probably never have to concern outselves with this type of occurance within our lifetimes, and things will always seem conservatively optimistic. ...but then again, either way...need I say more? hehe ;)

Score one for Gaia hypothesis

[PsiPsiStar]

One more point for the strong view of Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, that the earth is a self regulating system that 'deliberatly' seeks homeostasis within a particular range.

Of course, I wonder how selective the strong view of the Gaia hypothesis is... some species produce acid or produce greenhouse gasses... Do these not count because they're just the most efficient way to produce energy and not somthing 'deliberate' on the part of the organism? I'm not sure...

Damn clever little corals

[leonbrooks]

I wonder how many other substances they tried out in their little internal planning rooms before settling on DMS?

Re:Damn clever little corals

[laptop006]

Wonder if they tried THC.

(Was going to say WTF are you doing at this hour, but you're in Perth)

flatulonimbus

[witte]

This is nothing new.

I often release clouds when it gets too hot, eg. in crowded elevators.
It works very well.

Clarification-

[PsiPsiStar]

To clarify my earlier post; Should the production of acid count against the Gaia hypothesis since it involves life producing conditions which aren't generally hospitable to life. Is there biased selection among proponents of Gaia theory to cite only processes that lend themselves to environmental homeostasis or are such things actually the norm?

change which weather?

[QMO]

It seems that creating clouds would make the climate/weather difference downwind, not right over the coral giving off the DMS.

Maybe this theory is right, but to me it looks like grasping at straws.

The actual words of the article don't actually say that we know anything for sure, but the consistently positive tone, with no mention of a real possibility of error, followed by using this fairly unsupported hypothesis to support something like the Gaia thing, is very unscientific, if not outright dishonest.

My guess is that the actual scientists are still doing the science, but the author of the article found the actual science too boring and decided to "pep it up" a little. Of course I have no hard evidence for my hypothesis, so don't trust me too far on this.

WTF are you doing at this hour?

[leonbrooks]

(-:

Well, yes, I'm in Perth, but it's nearly midnight. The odds are good that you're a Victorian, specifically from Glen Waverly - my goodness, I can see your house from up here, a couple of blocks from the river - meaning it's nearing 3AM for you. Go to sleep, Julian!

WRT the THC, some of the theories I've seen about how coral reefs work have evidently been devised by marine biologists who store the stuff in their air tanks.

Dangers of the Gaia hypothesis

[Lonesome Squash]

Of course, this is a nice illustration of the Gaia hypothesis at work. However, caution is called for, for several reasons. The Gaia hypothesis represents danger scientifically, socially, and ecologically.

Scientifically, the danger is that we will be seduced by the filedrawer effect. Creatures definitely affect their environments. In some instances their effect will tend to feed back negatively (as the G.H. would predict), and in some cases positively. Whenever we come across an attractive example like this one, we trumpet it (and rightfully so). But when we come across a counterexample, we might tend to file it away as uninteresting. Would there have been a /. article saying, "Coral reefs have no particular effect on their local weather!"?

The social danger is that people's faith in the Earth Mother's ability to protect herself and them from harm will cause them to discount the importance of human-induced climate change.

The ecological danger is that, if the G.H. is accurate, then there are negative feedback loops maintaining our climate, and masking the effects of human (or other) influences on the climate. But it would be foolish to imagine that these mechanisms have no breaking point, no limit beyond which they can no longer maintain their local environment. If the strong G.H. turns out to be accurate, irreparable harm may be done to our environment before we see the signs.

Re:Dangers of the Gaia hypothesis

[CheshireCatCO]

We should be especially worried at this news, since we're killing coral at an alarming rate. If the coral has mitigated warming in the past, there's less of it to help now.

Typo/Wrong Info

[Ironsides]

The atmospheric pressure we feel at sea level (about 14.7lbs/in^2, IIRC) doubles every 33ft underwater. You have a typo. Presure is doubled at 33ft. But it does not double every 33ft. If it doubled every 33ft, the pressure at the bottom would be about 2*10^319 lbs/in^2. Pressure increases linearly by about 1 atmoshpere every 33 ft.

Re:Typo/Wrong Info

[Mattcelt]

You are totally correct, except that it was a brain fart instead of a typo. (Though thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt! ;-)

Damn, and here I was all smug feeling smart for a change... <sigh>

DMSP source of DMS, microbial community produces

[oldbox]

This is part of a large body of research on DMS, its production, fate, and effect on climate. See pubmed for over a thousand citeations.

Allmost all the DMS produced in the oceans originally came from DMSP produced by algae (some corals have symbiotic algae). Some DMSP is broken down to DMS by the algae themselves, but bacteria seem to have a major role in breaking down DMSP to DMS, as well as to another compound, methanethiol, that is not released into the atmosphere in large amounts. Interestingly, the genome of a bacterium that carries out both pathways of DMSP degradation is sequenced. Hopefully this will soon allow us to find more about these two competing fates of DMSP. If you really want more information on this bacteria, you could read the discription paper.

bugbox

Re:DMSP source of DMS, microbial community produce

[lazy genes]

Simply saying the word boo will cause algae to release DMS.Gravity does the same thing to algae.DMS keeps it boyant with saving space at the same time.Levels of dms are higher on full moons and new moons.

does coral stop the wind?

[museumpeace]

The prevailing winds must be pretty slack for an aerosol to have time to rise up to cloud levels and promote condensation before being wafted away from the reef those aerosols were intended to protect. If there are steady prevailing winds at the GBR, i would expect the benefit of this cloud formation to be down wind of the reef.

Re:does coral stop the wind?

[Xyanth]

That could explain why it is this discovery wasn't made until now. What with the clouds forming downwind of the reefs, or even being dispersed by overhead jetstreams, and possibly even by strong ocean currents carrying the reef's expelled materials out into the ocean, it's no surprise that it would be difficult to make such a discovery. It might have even been dumb luck that someone figured this out.

We don't need no stinking Gaia hypothesis

[juggledean]

Of course the world has homeostasis! Notice that the temperature, atmospheric oxygen content, etc, etc. has remained more or less constant within limits for all of recorded time.

Homeostasis is one of the most typical properties of highly complex open systems. It comes with the territory. We are part of the system. If we get to far out of control a feedback loop will kick in and negate our activity. The system will take care of itself. The question is will we work with the system and enjoy the error signal or work against it and suffer the consequences.